Sunday, March 4, 2012

Where were you in '82?

Many movie fans consider the summer of 1982 to be the best summer movie season of all time. Sure, there had been years that stood out in the history of a single film, like Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). But there was magic in the air thirty years ago, and we're going to attempt to rekindle that magic this summer in The Slaughtered Lamb Cinema.

We had initially planned to pick the top three films from the summer of 1982 to screen for our June movie party. The more we thought about it, the more we felt that there were too many good films to choose from. And while a number of these have screened as part of other series over the past four years, we agreed that they each deserved to be seen again. So we're shifting our monthly movie party focus a bit. Starting in May and running through the beginning of August, we will be screening a double-feature of 1982's greatest summer hits every two weeks.

We're still ironing out the schedule (basically trying to decide if we're going to screen them in chronological order, or try and pair them up thematically - if you have suggestions, please send them our way!). The twelve films we've picked to represent the best of the summer of 1982 in our 30th Anniversary retrospective include:

Good friend of The Slaughtered Lamb Pete Vilmur reminds us that two classics were also re-released in the summer of 1982. Call me crazy, but I think they warrant a double-feature of their own!